Normally a compilation error is generated if the code attempts to access a nonexistent member of a class. MissingMemberException is designed to handle cases where a field or a method is deleted or renamed in one assembly and the change is not reflected in a second assembly. At runtime, MissingMemberException will be thrown when the code in the second assembly attempts to access the missing member in the first assembly.

MissingMemberException is the base class for MissingFieldException and MissingMethodException. In general it is better to use one of the derived classes of MissingMemberException to more precisely indicate the exact nature of the error. Throw a MissingMemberException if you are only interested in capturing the general case of a missing member error.

MissingMemberException uses the HRESULT COR_E_MISSINGMEMBER, that has the value 0x80131512.

For a list of initial property values for an instance of MissingMemberException, see the MissingMemberException constructors.

This example shows what happens if you attempt to use reflection to call a method that does not exist and access a field that does not exist. The application recovers by catching the MissingMethodException, MissingFieldException, and MissingMemberException.

using System;
using System.Reflection;
publicclass App
{
publicstaticvoid Main()
{
try
{
// Attempt to call a static DoSomething method defined in the App class. // However, because the App class does not define this method, // a MissingMethodException is thrown. typeof(App).InvokeMember("DoSomething", BindingFlags.Static |
BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, null, null);
}
catch (MissingMethodException e)
{
// Show the user that the DoSomething method cannot be called.
Console.WriteLine("Unable to call the DoSomething method: {0}", e.Message);
}
try
{
// Attempt to access a static AField field defined in the App class. // However, because the App class does not define this field, // a MissingFieldException is thrown. typeof(App).InvokeMember("AField", BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.SetField,
null, null, new Object[] { 5 });
}
catch (MissingFieldException e)
{
// Show the user that the AField field cannot be accessed.
Console.WriteLine("Unable to access the AField field: {0}", e.Message);
}
try
{
// Attempt to access a static AnotherField field defined in the App class. // However, because the App class does not define this field, // a MissingFieldException is thrown. typeof(App).InvokeMember("AnotherField", BindingFlags.Static |
BindingFlags.GetField, null, null, null);
}
catch (MissingMemberException e)
{
// Notice that this code is catching MissingMemberException which is the // base class of MissingMethodException and MissingFieldException. // Show the user that the AnotherField field cannot be accessed.
Console.WriteLine("Unable to access the AnotherField field: {0}", e.Message);
}
}
}
// This code example produces the following output: // // Unable to call the DoSomething method: Method 'App.DoSomething' not found. // Unable to access the AField field: Field 'App.AField' not found. // Unable to access the AnotherField field: Field 'App.AnotherField' not found.